Ok..I'll try and keep this short. I have a mate, who I'll call X, who's girlfriend I worked with who I'll call Y. His girlfriend Y was friends with my girlfriend and we used to all go out together. Anyway - another bloke, who I'll call Z, started working in our team and I noticed, as did many other people, that this new guy Z and this girl Y were getting quite close -leaving together, working late nights together when they didn't have to and he would walk her to her car, bring lunch in for each other, going to each others houses when the other half was out and general acting quite close.

In fact at one point they seemed so close that I would often joke that they were shagging each other, but I honestly thought this girl would be faithful to her partner , my mate X, because she used to be friends with another girl who'll I'll call A, at the same place of work who used to go out with her man (X) and she was unfaithful to him and she (Y) saw how hurt he (X) was and was very opinionated about her friend (A) being a slag etc, so I thought nothing of it - if Y was unfaithful it would have been hypocritical wouldn't it?

Anyway - my mate's girlfriend (Y) went away with (Z) - who had a reputation by the way, despite being married - for a weekend along with a group of other people from work for a drink up that involved an overnight stay. I never went and never heard anything about the weekend other than everyone had a good time.

The relationship between Y and Z carried on and at one point I remember Y saying she had dream 't she'd had sex with Z, so as their closeness continued I kept making harmless jokes.

Then one day I came into work and found a pair of knickers down my chair -we all shared a small office - and I made the joke that they belonged to Y and Y and Z had been at it the night before. I mentioned this, in a joking fashion, to one of the group that had been at the weekend away who didn't work in our office but worked in the same building, I shall call her B, and thought no more of it. It transpires that Y and Z had planted them there knowing that I'd find them and make a joke about it.

Anyway a few days later Y came stomping in saying that I had taken the joke to far by mentioning it to someone outside our own office and she was going to complain unless I retracted the remark I made to B. She also went on to say that she had had to tell her boyfriend X about the jokes I had been making because if he heard about them he could get the wrong end of the stick, bearing in mind he'd already been hurt by A who had been unfaithful to him and leave her. So in the interests of office peace I spoke to B and explained that I was only joking and B looked a bit bewildered and said that she knew I was.

THEN I started getting threatening text messages from X telling me that I was to stop spreading rumours. I told X that I wasn't spreading rumours only making jokes like everyone else was and in any case Y and Z shouldn't be setting people up by planting knickers around the office in the first place and it was her own fault if their stunt backfired.

So that was the end of that, until a while later, another reliable source, who I shall call D, who also worked in the office and went on the weekend drink up, told us all about what really happened on that weekend away. Transpires that he noticed that Y and Z had disappeared from the bar so he went back to the room and caught them shagging. Later on at night when two of Y's friends went back to their room (there were 3 sharing one room) after a nights drinking when they opened the door she shouted 'F**koff and find somewhere else to sleep' Her two friends had to find another room to sleep in at 4 am. Her excuse the next day was that she wanted a good nights sleep because she was the one driving people home the next day. My guess is that Z was in bed with her.

It then dawned on me that what Y had actually done was set me up - she made me her patsy - so that if the events of that weekend away were to get back to her boyfriend (X) she could wrangle out of it by saying 'well that was your mate (me) spreading rumours - I told you so'

So I haven't seen my old mate X for a couple of years, I haven't heard from him at all, so I assume he bought her lies that I was spreading rumours maliciously and has decided to write me out of his life. Because I seen how hurt X was when A was unfaithful to him I decided to let him think that - I didn't want to see him hurt again, so you could say I sacrificed my friendship so he didn't learn the truth of what his new girlfriend (Y) had been up to.

Transpires my mate X, Y and Z and his wife are all very close now, going on holiday etc.

Now that's all well and good and I have no intention of telling X what D saw on that weekend away and that his girlfriends not only a slag like his last one but she's also a hypocrite as well, but I don't like the idea that she thinks she had one over on me and I don't know the truth.

So my question is:

Do I just let it lie?

or

What ways can I let Y know that people know what she did without revealing my identity? She thinks she got away with it - I just want to let her know she fooled no-one, except her boyfriend.

Well, do you like Y? Do you respect her? Do you care deeply about her opinion? No? Then why would you care what she does or doesn't think she got away with?

You say you hate X, but if he has a cheating girlfriend he's bound to suffer eventually, so best leave him to learn his own lessons.

For what it's worth, I doubt Y did set you up to be a patsy with the knickers - she couldn't have predicted exactly how you would behave, it was probably just a rather thoughtless action. It might be worth considering why it bothers you so much that other people seem to have got the better of you - I've been in a similar situation myself, and being bothered about it is always to do with your own insecurity. If you're happy and confident in yourself, you can accept all the different bad ways that other people behave, and know that it's nothing to do with you.

I would just leave it: this problem doesn't affect your own life and trying to take any revenge will probably hurt you more than them.

These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.

I'm indifferent to Y, but probably leaning towards disliking her for her betrayal of not just her boyfriend but also the friendship the four of us once shared. You must have misread the X's and the Y's - I never said I hated him (i.e X - my old friend).

The act of hiding the knickers was in fact quite intentional - she admitted as such. Not only that but technically she stole from the shop floor (we worked behind the scenes of a large retailer) to pull the stunt.

Why does it niggle me that she thinks she got the better of me? Because I'm no-ones fool. There's taking the mick and then there's taking the urine.I realize people have bad ways - but in my view you don't make others look bad to hide your own evil.

That was a bit difficult to read but I think I understood it. I don't quite see why you want revenge on X, as it was his girlfriend who was the one who cheated and who accused you of stiring things up a bit. I agree with Snail, I would just leave the whole thing. If you say that you haven't seen X in a couple of years I assume that this whole situation happened more than a couple of years ago and I don't think it would be a good idea to drag the whole thing back up again. You say that you don't want her to get away with it but whether she gets away with it or not has no direct impact on your own life. Chances are that she will eventually be found out anyway but even if she doesn't, it will be you who suffers the most from taking revenge.

~ Vision is knowing who you are, where you are going, and what will guide your journey ~

Because it will take up your time and your energy, make you feel generally stressed, and bad, and even if successful, will have no actual benefit for you. And the chances are it won't be successful anyway, if you try to interfere with someone else's relationship.

I know it's very hard to get your head around (I've been there) but this is all about you, not them. It's about how you feel about yourself, and needing to prove things to yourself. If your self-esteem was secure enough, you wouldn't care what these people did.

Liquid Virus wrote:Why does it niggle me that she thinks she got the better of me? Because I'm no-ones fool.

I agree with you, and you can choose to live your life according to that rule. You can't make others live their lives according to that rule if they don't want to. If you try to take revenge every time they break that rule you'll have an exhausting and unhappy life. There are only some things you can control, and other people's behaviour isn't one of them.

If you let these people dictate your behaviour you are in fact giving them a lot of power over you. Other people will do what they want to do, there's nothing you can do to change them. Your job is simply to look after yourself and live your life the way you want.

If this is about making friends with X again, rather than taking revenge, that's a different matter (because it's an action that will benefit you, rather than something pointless). If that's the case you are best off just being honest with him about everything, and if he doesn't want to know, then you'll have to move on and let him go.

Sorry to sound so preachy, but this is a situation I've been in myself, only more so (I had a dreadful ex, who made my life a misery - bullied me, hurt me, lied to me, stole my savings, committed fraud with my accounts, etc). Even now if I heard he had died in agony I would throw a party (so I haven't quite worked out my own demons yet, lol). But I haven't bothered to take pointless revenge on him. I'm happy with the way I behaved towards him, it's just bad luck he was a dreadful person. And bad luck like that will always happen - there'll always be awful people around, some of whom will hurt you. You just have to do what's best for you, and it isn't best for you to let this take up your time and energy.

These mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb.

Ok. Lets put it another way. A group of people are wandering around thinking what a tw*t you are for spreading malicious rumours about another person. You know this not to be true and you are the victim of someones lies. Do you rise above it or set the record straight?

If you were so worried the time to deal with it would be back thenI am pretty sure other people did not have the same take of the situation as youA - they didn't know x as a friendB - they didn't know about the previous situ with A

My guess is most of htem already sussed thet y and z were having it off but just kept out of it. They probably all loved your jokes and actually thought you meant them and disguised them as jokey jokes to have a dig, I know I would have.

Seriously I agree with snail this is about you not about them. X will fins out people like her always get caught out eventually.

And by the way there is an alternative. D could be lying??? People like to stir and embellish and be part of the story sometimes.

You actually don't know they did anything becasue YOU did not see any proof.

What would D have to gain by making something up? Why prevent two people who have paid for a room from coming into it and making them find somewhere else to sleep in the middle of the night, just because you want a good nights sleep? Other people who were there when asked about what happened get all cagey and awkward.